Hypercooking

Cooking at home can be rewarding and delicious. But how can you reduce the impact your cooking has on the environment? Try "hypercooking"!

-Keep your pots and pans covered when possible. According to green is sexy, simply using a lid can "reduce the energy used by 20-30 percent." Bonus: your cooking gets finished sooner, too.

-Let residual heat finish your food. According to this Food Section article, "One hypercooking technique involves saving energy by turning off the source of the heat before a dish is fully-cooked and relying upon the residual heat to cook the food until it is done." Do this wisely, of course, and within reason. But for most dishes, this works just fine.

-Piggy-back. Are you cooking two dishes in the oven or on the stovetop? Have the other one prepped and ready to put on the heat as soon as the first one finishes. There are a million ways you could use this method. It works really well with pasta and pasta sauce. But it also works well if you are cooking a casserole and plan to serve cookies for dessert, etc. A little planning goes a long way.

Cooking Efficiently

Doing some cooking? Awesome. Do it efficiently!

For most dishes, microwaving is the most energy efficient option. Like, a lot more energy efficient. If your dish can be made in the microwave, let that be your default.

Not all foods can be done in the microwave, of course (hello, toast?). So plan ahead when using your oven and range.

Oven:
-Keep the inside clean. You want the heat to reflect within the appliance for the most efficient cooking.
-Don't open the door to check on your food. Turn on the little light. Opening the door lets out a lot of heat/energy (up to 25 degrees!).
-Don't preheat the over if you can get away with it. If you're making fish or something, by all means, follow the recipe! Most dishes, just stick it in from the get-go.
-Turn off your oven before the timer goes off. There's never any need to wait until after the food is out of the oven to turn it off. With the door closed, the temperature stays high for quite a while. Turn it off five minutes before the timer rings.
-Plan ahead and cook more than one thing in a row. I very often take the opportunity to bake a batch of cookies when the oven's already warm...

Stovetop:
-Cover your pots, pans, and skillets (unless you're cooking pasta or something). This keeps the heat in the pot and allows you to use less energy.
-Like the oven, turn off your burner before the timer sounds. Electric tops especially stay warm enough for quite a while.
-Keep the burners clean so your range can heat most efficiently.
-Plan ahead and use the same burner for more than one dish! While your pasta is draining, your sauce can be warming using just the residual heat of the warm burner.

For some additional tips, check out Microwaves vs. Ovens: What's the Greenest Way to Heat Your Food at Treehugger.

Happy cooking!